Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Studying for ISU Grand Prix Finals: Pairs & Dance Predictions

This time I’m going to break the Finals predictions into two parts, like I did with all the GP predictions last season. And since I’ve been trying to post TV times, I’ll split those in half as well. Here are Tokyo streaming times for IceNetwork:

It’s been 2 ½ years since Shen/Zhao last went up against Sav/Szol… the former won gold (at Worlds 2007); the latter took bronze. Has the latter caught up? They’re probably quite a bit closer, but it’s hard to imagine Shen/Zhao anywhere other than first, especially after seeing them in recent events. They’re truly in a class by themselves at this point. As for bronze—believe it or not, I’m not super-confident about P/T, and am willing to admit either Russian pair could get it. But I still think P/T have the smallest likelihood of making major mistakes.

I know that V/M and D/W tend to go neck-and-neck when competing directly these days… but I’m picking the Canadians this time, if only because I’d love to see Davis/White over them when it counts a little more. In VANCOUVER. (Quite a pipe dream, I realize, with it being home turf for V/M and all… but skating fans have to know how to dream or else we go crazy, yes?)

I’d rather see the Kerrs or Crone/Poirer for bronze, but I know they don’t have the complexity of the French team. Besides, who doesn’t want to root for a guy dressed like a clock :-)

Men and ladies predictions to come soon… for the Clip of the Day here’s a look at the GPF winner from 5 years ago… hmmm, mighty familiar-looking…

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About Me

By day, I write and/or do production for clients in corporate video and B2B magazines. But I've also written for PSA (Professional Skaters Association) Magazine and SKATING (official USFS publication)... with more to come!